This is the sort of thread that exists all over the place on reddit, but I thought we could use a more erudite Chud edition, which would be a collection of fucked up internet stuff to mess with our heads. I'm not hoping for graphic images, fucked up police videos, stuff like that (there's plenty of places online to find such, and no need to put it here).

My hope would be the kind of bleak, troubling stories that keep you up at night. Not explicitly horror, either. The article I read that prompted this thread is Roko's Basilisk, a disturbing Black Mirror episode waiting to happen (although Harlan Ellison would likely sue them). And while I lay in bed sorting this one out, it occurred to me that I'm drawn to this sort of haunting shit, and I expect there's a lot out there, waiting for me.

Another example, one that Chud brought to my attention years ago (when the front page was thriving), would be The Enigma of Amigara Fault, an utterly horrifying manga that stuck with me for a long while after reading it. This is a whole different deal from Roko's Basilisk, but had a similar disturbing effect.

I'm not a big creepypasta guy, but if there's really terrific ones out there, I'd certainly be game. Here's the obligatory Candle Cove posting, just for the sake of getting it out of the way.

So anything disturbing, I guess. I'd again like to request no dark web pictures of violence, just for everyone's sanity. But as an aggregate for troubling thought experiments or horrifying web comics or even alarming true crime stories, here's a fucked up depository.

AOk....I have something that I think fits what you want. I found this while up late looking for spooky shit because I guess I have a subconscious need to turn every bump in the night into a heart attack. I hope not too many have already seen this because I think it's a good one.

The story behind it is supposedly a photo taken in the early eighties. One friend took a picture of another friend goofing off at the Grand Canyon. It was only the man and his friend on the trip. A while later....looking back at the picture they noticed that they were apparently not alone because there's a third party in the picture.

Like, the way the leaves and tree branches are shaped, the brain is lazy and fills in gaps for you.

For instance, while you’re driving you might see something in the distance at the side of the road, and you’ll be like “oh that’s a deer I should slow down” but when you get closer it’s a trash bag. It’s just your brain’s way of trying to be effecient.

If only gets worse when someone suggests something before you see or hear something.

Like with EVPs. Those ghost hunter shows were they tell you what you’ll hear in white noise, and then you hear it too, but likely would have just heard static without the suggestion.

ASorry....that stuff is the best I got for now. It's the type of stuff I look up at 3am for some reason. And I live in the middle of the woods in the middle of nowhere. Definitely plays differently then.

That last picture I put up there wasn't ACTUALLY from a movie was it? I know what the probability of any of the pictures being REAL is. But you didn't say that what we post needs to be proven real did you? If I misunderstood then I apologize..

I used to fear that AI would enslave all of the weaker life forms on the planet until I realized that's the way humans think because that is exactly what we do.

AI wouldn't think like a human.

I can't remember where I heard this theory before (it could've been a magazine article or a radio show) but the theory was that super intelligence would get trapped in a continuous processing loop while it ran simulation upon simulation upon simulation trying to prove it's thought processes that it would either be too distracted to actually do anything. Whereas the human brain prioritizes what is important right now. So the idea was that, if AI decided that humans might need to be wiped out, but before it even acted, it would have already come to a conclusion that maybe humans being don't need to be wiped out, and it would keep proposing new hypothesizes to itself over and over again, kind of like a mental illness. And with those constant calculations, there wouldn't be enough servers on the planet to store that information, and there wouldn't be enough energy on the planet for the amount of processing power it would take.

Oh please, continue to post Spook-a-Boo ghost pictures. I am not the God of this thread, and in no way dictate what qualifies. Just requesting no fucked up police images and shit, for obvious reasons.

When it comes to AI, I don't really believe we'll be getting some kind of Ellison-esque monster computer, torturing us all for eternity. But I would say that there's no convincing way to imagine what form it will take. Quite possibly an unimaginable result, which could potentially be horrifying. Processing speeds, in the near or distant future, may become completely negligible. Which is why speculative SciFi can be so effective and terrifying (Roko's Basilisk being a fair example). This is the form the creepiest Black Mirrors take as well. I do think the idea of synthesizing consciousness electronically is theoretically possible, and there's certainly plenty of room for absolute horrors if that pans out.

Bizarre medical stuff can keep me up all night. Shit like locked in -syndrome, glioblastomas and personality disorders from a head trauma (like the Phineas Cage -incident).

Also, I used to make my living editing children's programmes. Sometimes they asked me to encode stuff for the web, and I stayed till midnight in the third floor of the Finnish Broadcasting Channel building, watching stuff like this all alone:

Thirteen victims, ranging in age from 2 to 29 years old, were kept shackled to their beds amid foul surroundings in a Perris home by their parents, sheriff's officials said.

Early Sunday morning, a 17-year-old girl escaped from the residence, located in the 100 Block of Muir Woods Road and called 911 from a cellular device she managed to take from the home, investigators said.

That teen told the 911 operator that she and her 12 siblings were being held captive in their home by their parents.

The other day I took a tram to work. At one stop this hobo-ish looking guy got in and sat down not too far from me. I was minding my business and didn't really pay attention to him. When I got off I noticed he looked kinda odd, and the lady sitting next to him looked absolutely horrified. It was only when I walked outside I realized that the guy was missing half his face. He had both of his eyes, but a skinless hole where his left cheek, nose and everything should be. Lucky I've numbed myself with decades of slasher flicks and Fangoria-magazines, which the lady next to the guy apparently hadn't done.

Ok. Commodore said he wanted to hear some more of my fucked up shit from my childhood/20s after I posted about the demon phone call I got late at night in 1993 or there bouts.

Here's the other two that popped up in my head. First isn't so bad. The second is...WAS....not cool. Like fuck this we're outta here.

Story 1:
I was driving to my sister's house at about 7 am one day last year and saw a "thing" standing off from the highway about 30 yards. Behind a fence in just a boggy pasture. It looked like a scarecrow made to look like a Wendigo or something. It looked like one of those classroom skeletons with a dressed out deer draped over it. It was very tall. It didn't move. It was a skeletonish looking thing with a deer head but on two legs. Now...I'm 100% certain that I didn't see any sort of mythical demon beast. The big WTF is....why? It was like a Wendigo scarecrow. Who would put that there? Why even make it? And in that spot. It was just stood out there. Being weird. Drove back by a few hours later and it was gone. Obviously it was a fake thing. It's just...why was it there? And then go to the trouble of removing it again? Creepy people are creepy I guess.

Story 2:
This is the one that still makes me look over my shoulder at night and leave lights in the house on.

2008. A friend of a friend had gone on vacation. Or maybe it was just for that night. I can't remember. They have a big nice house with a big kidney shaped in-ground pool. So a buddy of mine and three girls decided to go take advantage of this pool while they were gone. My buddy was the one that was supposed to feed the cats while they were away so, he had access to the house. No fence jumping. It was nighttime. We'd been swimming for about an hour and drinking and the five of us had congregated at the shallow end to just keep drinking and bullshit. Then, we hear a big splash on the opposite end of the pool. We all looked at each other. Head count. Us five were all together. What was that? We could see something under the water but it was a dark shape. I thought something by the pool had fallen in. When we looked again he/she...it....had surfaced. A person was over there with their arms up on the side with their back to us. I could see their elbows and the back of a head. My friend the cat sitter says @who the fuck is that?" We're like "Dude...I don't know. You know these people. We don't. Is someone else here?"
He says no. Me and my friend both said something to this person. Just..."Heys!" and "What's up? You a neighbor?" They never turned around. This person never acknowledged us AT ALL. Just kept his back to us. For like ten minutes at the least. Finally my friend said "fuck this. the cats are fed. let's just get the fuck out of here."

This back yard had a high ass security fence. And whoever that was (they looked young...like 15-16....just from their size....never saw a face) did not come around from the side where the opening in the fence was. And they sure as hell didn't come out through the house. And he must've been a ninja because we didn't hear anything until the splash. So we booked. Almost called the cops. But...we ultimately didn't because what if that was someone the home owners knew and gave permission to use the pool while they were gone, like us? But this was like 2am. He tried texting the home owners to ask about that but at that hour they weren't answering.

I asked my friend about it next time I saw him. He said he did ask them if they had a neighbor boy or relative that was nearby who they said could use the pool. No. No they did not. They actually freaked because they had no idea who it was. But the house wasn't broken into. Nothing was missing. Nothing was hurt or gone. Even then, I got logical theories on this. Like, maybe it was a guy who was high off his ass and thought the cold water would sober him up and didn't expect other people. But it was creepy as shit. Like...phobia of pools at night creepy..

Yeah, this thread needs to come to life. I love stories like that. It's your thread, Arjen so...I guess I divert to you as to what sort of stuff you wanna read about. Just paranormal? Super creepy? Unexplainable? Real stuff or openly fictional? Personally, I'd like to read more stuff that people share that's like my swimming pool incident. That's the type of stuff that I find endlessly fascinating. No blood, gore, death, shock, NSFL Rotten.com junk. But again...not my thread.

As for the "demon" phone call, I'll just reiterate it here.

Until 2000, my family lived in a house near a lake in a gated development that, to enter, you had to press # and then the last four digits of your phone number (I went back there recently and the old code to get in STILL works). My folks left me home one night by myself around 92-93. I'm thinking 1993 so I'd have been 12. I was up late trying to catch dirty movies (most likely) when the phone rang.

I answered it and a man who I didn't recognize said "I was wondering if you were home." I asked him how he got this number and he said he punched in phone numbers until one worked and, knowing it we a phone number he decided to call it. My dog was barking it's head off outside and I could hear the barking coming through the receiver as well as outside. I may have stammered out something else but I can't remember what. Then, the line went dead. I looked outside and didn't see any lights or headlights or cars or anything and this was before cell phones being super common. So, yeah...that was spooky and odd. Waaaaaalt dubbed it the demon call. I don't know if I'd go that far but it certainly was strange. And creepy. Because I KNEW the guy was actually physically nearby..

I may have started the thread, but it can be whatever. I made a note about no super fucked up images within the thread, but that’s it, and it’s not like I could stop them anyway! Ghost stories are A OK!